Mass Chaos Tour rumbles to Ford Pavilion on April 24

Ford Pavilion will host the first ever Mass Chaos Tour with co-headliners Godsmack and Staind on Tuesday, April 24 with gates opening at 5:30 p.m. Tickets ($45, $35) can be purchased at the Ford Park box office and other Ticketmaster locations including the HEB on Dowlen Road in Beaumont, Beaumont Civic Center, Lake Charles Civic Center, ticketmaster.com and charge-by-phone at (800) 745-3000. Also performing on the outdoor stage will be Halestorm and Man Made Machine.

With over 15 million albums sold, Godsmack has produced three consecutive No. 1 albums along with dozens of hits including “Keep Away,” “Voodoo,” “Awake,” “Greed,” “I Stand Alone,” “Straight Out of Line,” “Speak,” “The Enemy,” “Whiskey Hangover,” “Love-Hate-Sex-Pain” and “Cryin’ Like a B*tch.”Pennsylvania’s Halestorm is touring in support of a brand new record, The Strange Case of... Their debut single, “Love Bites (So Do I),” has been their highest charting single to date (No. 5), but possess other Top 10 hits such as “I Get Off” and “It’s Not You.”

Vocalist Sully Erna of Godsmack and singer Lzzy Hale of Halestorm participated in a teleconference with numerous media outlets to discuss the Mass Chaos Tour.

What is a girl to do with a male dominated band and now another tour dominated by males?

Lzzy: Well, I kind of have a different view of all of that than I think many of my female counterparts. I freaking love being a girl on an all guy bill. I mean it’s great. You feel like a little sister in rock almost. You’ve got these big brothers around you. You learn a helluva lot and you stick out your thumb and, I don’t know. I love it.

Sully, is there any musician that you would love to meet who you have yet to?

Sully: Yeah, the guys from AC/DC I haven’t met yet. I think they would be fun. I met most of the people that I’ve been inspired by over the years and we’ve toured with most of them as well, but AC/DC is one of the bands I haven’t met; Brian Johnson or Angus Young yet. I think that would be great to meet them.

After the success of your first CD, what aspects of the new release are you most excited about right now?

Lzzy: Everything. I’m so proud of this record. We really wanted to bridge the gap between, I mean, when we made our first record, it’s our first record so we weren’t really sure what we were doing and we weren’t sure who would grab on to it and who we were actually going to be singing to. So, with this record, we had just a better concept of our fans and a lot of what we did was inspired by them and the feeling that we put on more live shows. Also, this music is bridging the gap between what we do live and what we can do in the studio. This was lost on our last record, so for the period of technical folderol, we kind of draw into some tape and we did most of the stuff, just by ourselves, the four of us sitting in a room as a band. So, it’s secondly a gradual, a nice step up from the last record and we have a lot more energy and it also, you’re going to be hearing and tasting a lot of different things on this record, so I think the biggest things on this is really about being one of the better syncs.

The band’s first live album, ‘Live and Inspired,’ will be out this spring that will include 13 of your favorite live songs and a bonus disc of four cover tracks. What can your fans expect from the live shows on this tour?

Sully: Well, we’re not supporting, like, a new studio record, but, like you said, we’re doing this live CD. We’ve also known to be a live band and to be able as. I think that’s what we’ve been known for is the live show. And so it’s nice to capture that finally and put together this CD and I think we just have the mentality of going out for like kind of the greatest hits tour out of that supporting new music. So, we’re just going to put together a really fun set. Obviously we’ll have the drum battle that me and Shannon (Larkin) do and we’re just going to try to put together the best songs we can, the most energetic songs that we can, and stuff that we feel is going to be the most interactive for the audience. So, this is actually kind of a vacation for us a lot in the sense there’s no real hard work behind prepping for a new record and all that stuff. This is kind of let loose and have fun with it.You got started when you were about 13. I was wondering, comparing the Lzzy today with back then, what’s been the biggest change as a musician? And then what stayed the same?

Lzzy: Definitely more confident than at 13. I mean, one thing that has, I mean, my brother and I started the band and everything, named the band, Halestorm, and started playing anywhere and everywhere to get a story. And after the band started up a couple years, you could see - I don’t know - it just became my identity and it’s just something that I couldn’t live without. So, definitely confident is a factor from before I was a band member to now, but, I mean, it’s definitely different. I mean, in the beginning, you’re in a rock band and you’re having fun and you’re just getting a little bit of a taste of it. You don’t care what’s going to happen. You’re just in love with what’s going to happen next. So, when we play one club and then we see another club that leads to a tour, and now I still have that feeling, but it’s also balanced with a lot of politics and a lot of the business sense. So, in a way it’s just growing up. I mean, becoming more responsible with your craft and more things I’ve got to think about now that maybe I should lead a little bit, because I’m got some big gigs coming up. So, things that you don’t really have to deal with as a teenager, so I don’t know. I look at that fondly and I still think there’s a lot of it that’s still the same; there’s still that fire - still love it as much as I ever did. And I still get to go up on stage and look at my guys and play with my little brother and all those feelings come back. So, yeah, I’m just going to kind of keep doing what I’m doing and I don’t think that anything’s going to change.

Are you working on any new Godsmack material? And if so, when can fans expect a new studio album?

Sully: We’re hoping for 2013. We just started listening to some ideas. It’s very, very, very early in that stage, so we’re not sure yet, but we are going to shoot for 2013 sometime.

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